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Kent Walton, the former wrestling commentator on World of Sport who died on Sunday aged 86, was instantly recognisable from his husky welcome at 4 o'clock each Saturday afternoon: "Greetings, grapple fans."
A smoker who cultivated a mid-Atlantic drawl, Walton hosted the wrestling for all of the 33 years that it appeared, sandwiched between the half-time and full-time football scores; at the end of the allotted time, he would sign off: "Have a good week. . .till next week." When the ITV schedulers finally dropped the sport in 1988, he announced that his lips had been dented by so much time at the microphone.
Walton's understated, factual commentary described wrestlers from George Kidd (his favourite), Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus to the less athletic Big Daddy ("Ea-sy, ea-sy") and Giant Haystacks. Walton hotly refuted allegations that the bouts were fixed, and would put into practice on saloon-bar doubters some of the wrestling moves he had learned. In its televised heyday, wrestling attracted as many as 12 million viewers. They included the Queen, whose interest in the sport was mentioned in Richard Crossman's diaries; and Margaret Thatcher, who asked Big Daddy for six signed photographs, and found him useful for conversation in Africa, where he was a household name. The Duke of Edinburgh was said to be captivated by Johnny Kwango's head-butting technique, and Frank Sinatra told Giant Haystacks that British wrestlers were the best entertainers in the world.
Kent Walton was born Kenneth Walton Beckett on August 22 1917 in Cairo, where his father was minister of finance in the colonial government. Young Kenneth grew up at Haslemere in Surrey and went to Charterhouse, where he excelled at springboard diving.
He went on to the Embassy School of Acting in London and then appeared in rep. On the outbreak of war he joined Bomber Command, and saw action as a radio operator and front-gunner. He also began to modulate his public school accent while mixing with Canadian airmen. After demobilisation, Walton returned to the stage before starting work as a television sports commentator, initially covering football for Rediffusion and tennis at Wimbledon, before his first wrestling commentary from West Ham Baths at 9pm on November 9 1955.
Walton had been given the job despite never having been to a bout, so a couple of days before he went down to the gym with Mick McManus and got him to demonstrate the various holds. Soon Walton had mastered the terminology and even began to make up names for moves himself.
Wrestling became one of ITV sport's earliest successes, something Walton ascribed to the fact that it portrayed men as they wanted to be, and showed women the sort of men they wanted to meet. "I've seen women having orgasms watching wrestlers," he avowed. He later claimed that, of the hundreds of wrestlers he had met, he had disliked only two, on account of their violent natures. Most wrestlers, he said, "really help each other".
Walton combined wrestling commentary with disc jockeying on Radio Luxembourg with the Honey Hit Parade and fronting the first pop programme on British television, Cool For Cats. "Hi," he would say, raising a flat hand in greeting, whilst casually flicking ash from a cigarette in his other. He later hosted another pop programme, Discs A-Go-Go.
He also did voice-overs for commercials and went into partnership with Hazel Adair (the Crossroads writer) in Pyramid Films, which made Virgin Witch (1971), a cheap horror movie in which the cast shed their clothes at the slightest opportunity, and Keep It Up Downstairs (1978), a dire sex farce featuring a bed-hopping aristocratic family.
Kent Walton remained fond of wrestling, but said in 1996: "It's not the same. I don't really go now. It's mostly up North, isn't it?"
He married, in 1949, Lynn Smith. They had a son.
KENT Walton, the voice of wrestling, has died after hiding his cancer from his wife and son.
The 86-year-old, famous for opening his Saturday slot on ITV in the 70s and 80s with: "Hello, grapple fans", only admitted to his illness on his death bed.
His wife Lynn, 83, said: "We knew he was ill, but he passed it off as old age.
"He only told us last Thursday he had cancer. He died three days later."
Born Kenneth Walton Beckett in Canada, the former RAF pilot took up his stage name when he was hired for ITV's World of Sport by Michael Grade - 30 years after running away with the TV chief's mother, Winifred.
He married Lynn 52 years ago and they had one son, Lee, now 50.
Walton was one of sport's top commentators during the era of Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, but wrestling was dropped in the 80s by Greg Dyke.
Lynn, from Haslemere, Surrey, said: "It wasn't thought glamorous enough and then WWF came along."
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